Stories Your History Teacher Never

Told YouUNTIL NOW!!!!!

Created by Ronna Williams

The Spark That Set The Civil Rights Movement

on FireEmmett Till was 14 years old when he was found beaten to death & shot through the head. His body had been wired to a heavy weight & dumped into the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.

Emmett Till

Citation (Chicago Manual of Style)PBS. "American Experience: The Murder of Emmett Till."unitedstreaming: http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/

He was killed for saying something like Subject to

disclaimers.“bye baby!” to a white woman.

Bryant’s Store in Money,

Mississippi where

Emmett Till said the words that

led to his death.

I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

Later, one of the men who helped to kill him, told a writer how they killed Emmett. He said “Well, what else could I do? He thought he was as good as any white man”. The men were found not guilty by an all white jury.

Emmett Till Was Killed in 1955

The Spark

All across the country, decent people were outraged. Emmett’s murder was the spark that set the Civil Rights Movement on FIRE!

His death proved not even a child was safe from the killer called racism.

Open Casket

I Am A Man

Black Garbage Workers in Memphis formed a Union & went on strike.

Why Were They on Strike?

Walking Buzzards

Wages and working conditions for Memphis sanitation workers were atrocious. The average pay was $1.80 an hour. The wages were so low that forty percent of the workers qualified for welfare and many worked second jobs. They lifted leaky garbage tubs into decrepit trucks and were treated unfairly. During foul weather, black workers were sent home without pay while the white workers were paid a full day. There were neither benefits, vacation, nor pension. The sanitation department refused to modernize ancient equipment used by the black workers. Black sanitation workers were called "walking buzzards."

http://www.reuther.wayne.edu/MAN/2Memphis.htm

The Strike Begins

On a rainy February afternoon, two black sanitation workers sat inside the back of a garbage truck to stay dry. Old and poorly maintained, an electrical short in its wiring caused the compressor to start running, and Echol Cole and Robert Walker were crushed to death. The Memphis Sanitation Department gave the families of each worker a months pay plus $500 for funeral expenses. No city official attended the funerals and no further compensation was extended.

On the evening of February 11, a meeting with sanitation workers was held to discuss the recent deaths, partial pay on rainy days and safety conditions. They ultimately decided that enough was enough and voted to strike.

This Strike is what brought Martin Luther King to Memphis where he was shot &

killed.

No Violence

King had agreed to help with the strike of the garbage workers~

When teenagers in the march began to throw bricks and steal from stores, King called off the march.

J. Edgar Hoover was head of the FBI & he hated Martin Luther King.

The FBI tapped MLK phone.

King Shot

Martin Luther King was shot and killed as he stepped out on the balcony of his hotel room.

As his casket was being lowered into the ground, riots sprung up in 130 cities around the nation.

National Guard troops were called out to put down the riots.

Black PowerA different group emerged shouting “black power!” They called for blacks to arm themselves for self defense.

This group also suggested the government make certain states in America “black only” states.

This new group did not want white people to march with them at all as Martin Luther King had appreciated.

The Black Panthers

Malcolm X

Became the leader of the Black Power Movement.

Who was Malcom XReally?

He was a high school drop out.

He sold drugs and was a thief

While he was in jail, he studied the dictionary

He learned to pronounce words and use them correctly

He started reading American and World History

More on Malcolm X

Malcolm X was a Black Muslim who encouraged violence.

Later, when he renounced the Black Muslim faith & the use of violence, members of the the Black Muslim faith killed him.

Plessy v Ferguson 1896

Homer Plessy was 1/8 black, but looked white.

Separate but Equal

Everything was separate in the United States. Separate drinking fountains, separate railway cars and separate bathrooms. The court said this was alright as long as both the white and black accommodations were equal.

Plessy v Ferguson Case

This case has to do with separate railway cars for whites and blacks.

Since Homer Plessy could pass for white, he got on the train car reserved for whites.

Someone asked him if he was black & he said yes, but refused to get up and move to the black railcar.

Verdict

The court said it was legal to have separate facilities for whites and blacks they were equal.

If the black railcars were all run down and rusted & the white railcars were modern and comfortable, this would not be legal.

SEPARATE BUT EQUAL

14th Amendment

The 14th Amendment says that “no state shall deny any person equal protection under the law”.

1954 Brown v Board of Education overturned

Plessy v FergusonIn this case the Supreme Court determined that separate is never equal.

Linda Brown

Citation (Chicago Manual of Style)United Learning. "Civil Rights: The Long Road to Equality."unitedstreaming: http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/Civil Rights: The Long Road to Equality

The lawyer for the NAACP thought Linda would be a good student to integrate in the white schools.

Thurgood Marshall

Brown v Board of Education

This case involving Linda Brown called for schools to stop being segregated, but the south would not do this without a fight!

Bringing It Home To Alabama

Rosa Parks was a tailor at a

department store.

She rode the bus each day.

The front seats were

for whites only.

Rosa Parks got onto the bus and sat in the section in the back reserved for blacks.

The bus was packed when a white man got onto the bus.

The bus driver told Rosa to get up and let the white man sit down, but she refused.

She was arrested.

Jo Ann Robinson was so upset by Rosa Parks’ arrest that she called for a bus boycott!This meant that black people who rode

the bus would walk. Many white people drovethe black people to work risking their own lives

The Little Rock Nine

1957

Little Rock, ArkansasNine black students were about to start a white school

One of the little girls didn’t have a phone.

All the other students knew they were going to go in together.

Elizabeth Eckford arrived early.

Alone

Elizabeth walked alone into the school as the crowd yelled

“ Go home nigger! We don’t want you!”

Using the National Guard

Governor Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to Prevent the Little Rock Nine from entering the white school.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

He ordered the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to insure the safety of the "Little Rock Nine” & to be sure they got into the school just as the Supreme Court hadordered.

What Happened?

One of the the Little Rock nine was kicked out of school for dumping a bowl of chili on a tormentors head.

The rest of them finished out the year,

but most moved away

or took corresponden

ce courses after that.

Only 2 returned.

What Was a Freedom Ride?

People would get on the greyhound in a northern town & ride into a southern town.

When they got off the bus, they would go into whites only section and sit with black people.

The crowd dumped mustard, ketchup and drinks on top of the people doing the non-violent sit-ins.

Sit Ins

White People Joined in the Protests

Now at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.!

A Freedom Ride into Alabama was marked by nearly every window in the bus being busted by white people outside.

The tires on the bus were shot out!

The bus exploded and many people were hit by shards of glass.

They took them to the hospital and the hospital would not treat any of them!

In Birmingham, the KKK was promised by the police that they would be very slow getting to the trailways bus station.

The KKK beat the freedom riders with chains and baseball bats for 15 minutes before the police began to arrive.

Later a KKK informant testified that the police said they would give the KKK a full 15 minutes to do some damage.

Police Chief Eugene “Bull” Connor

A member of the KKK

Called the dogs out in Birmingham.

He used high pressure fire hoses

Ruby Bridges

Bloody Sunday

Bloody Sunday" occurred on March 7, 1965, when 600 civil rights marchers were attacked by state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas.